"The Argument Is Not One of Calendars: It Is Conflicting Dogma
and Theology That Lead to Separate Celebrations of Pascha"

by Archpriest George Metallinos

The Resurrection of Christ is not only the unshakeable foundation of our Faith
("If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain" [I Corinthians
15:17]), but also brings to mind the tragic division in the Christian
world of our era.

The goal of ecumenical or inter-Christian dialogue is precisely to remove this
division and to restore unity.

Indeed, in ecumenical circles, the common celebration of Pascha is considered
to be an essential step in this direction.

The decision to change the calendar (1923-1924) — a hasty decision that
was not pan-Orthodox — led to the common Christian celebration of Christmas
(and the immovable Feasts), but not to that of Pascha (and the movable Feasts),
which continues to be determined in the Orthodox world on the basis of the Julian
(Old) Calendar.

A recent Patriarchal Encyclical (No. 150/26 May 1995) raises the question of
the necessity of "determining" "a common date for the celebration of the Great
Feast of Pascha by all Christians," thereby promoting a unionist course.

We should not forget, however, certain fundamental historical and theological
constants which decisively determine the meaning of Christian (Church) Feasts and
our liturgical experience of them, as in the case of Pascha:

(a) Many Orthodox rightly maintain that the impediment to celebrating Feasts
at the same time as the non-Orthodox is not the difference in calendars, but the
difference in dogma and theology; that is, our non-convergence on matters of
faith, given, in particular, that "faith" in the unbroken Christian Tradition,
which is continued in Orthodoxy, is not a simple — either perfunctory or
scholastic — acceptance of certain disincarnate "truths" of an absolute
nature, but, rather, participation in a way of life handed down by the Apostles
and the Fathers, which leads to our experiencing the Holy Spirit.

This experience, when formulated in words, constitutes the Faith of the Church
as the Lord's Body.This is how we should understand the Church's canonical
injunction — from the First OEcumenical Synod, which, in 325 A.D., resolved
the issue of the celebration of Pascha once and for all down to the present day
— "not to keep feast with the Jews," which is tantamount, today, "not to
keep feast with the heterodox."

This is not a fruit of religious bigotry, but the expression of a healthy and
active ecclesiastical self-awareness. For this reason, as far back as 1582, the
Orthodox East rejected the "New" Calendar, not for scientific, but for
ecclesiological reasons, since the introduction of this calendar was linked both
by Westerners and by our own unionists with the imposition of a simultaneous
observance of feasts as a (de facto) facilitation of union "from the grass roots"
(on a broad basis).

This spirit was embodied in the controversial Encyclical of 1920, which
proposed "the acceptance of a single calendar for the simultaneous celebration of
the major Christian feasts by all the Churches."

We will not dwell, here, on the fact that this Encyclical places Orthodoxy and
non-Orthodoxy on the same level. We will, however, recall that, while certainly
paving the way for ecumenism, it nonetheless served to provoke the genesis of the
"Old Calendarist" question, which remains a tragic and traumatic experience in
the body of the Orthodox Church and ought, for this very reason, to be resolved
prior to any partial or broader settlement in the domain of "ecumenical"
dialogue.

(b) The precondition for the common "celebration of Christian feasts" is not
agreement over the calendar or diplomatic and legal accords, but "the unity of
faith and the communion of the Holy Spirit";namely, adherence to an understanding
of Christianity as a "spiritual hospital" (St. John
Chrysostomos), that is, as an existential and social hospital and as a
method of therapy.

The ideologizing of Christianity or its academic formulation — maladies
resulting from ecumenical dialogue — not only do not lead us to the unity
we desire, but actually take us away from it. The unity and union which culminate
in the Holy Table and the Holy Cup require "unanimity" in faith and in Christian
life as a whole; that is, acceptance of the Apostolic Tradition in its totality
and incorporation into it.

It is for precisely this reason that worship and the liturgical tradition
alone do not constitute a basis of unity, as those engaged in ecumenical dialogue
widely, but erroneously, believe. Worship and participation in worship are not
efficacious in soteriological terms, outside the aforementioned context of a
common ecclesiological tradition. The perennial prayer of the Orthodox believer
is for "the restoration and reunion of the erring" to the Body of Christ, the One
Church (Liturgy of St. Basil the Great).

In this way, the amphidromic force of the statement of St. Paul, which we
cited at the beginning, is justified: "If the Resurrection of Christ is the
foundation of our Faith, then authentic Faith is the sole precondition for
participation in the Resurrection as the greatest event of our salvation in
Christ."

Archpriest George Metallinos is clergyman of the Church of
Greece and a professor of the University of Athens. This article was published in
the newspaper Kathimerini.